


Loose Lips

by mspennydreadful



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 18:11:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6999076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mspennydreadful/pseuds/mspennydreadful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time that Peggy Carter kisses Howard Stark, it saves his life.  It is the early spring of 1941, France had fallen the previous summer, and she'd only met him a scant five months prior.  Her op was supposed to take her away from Paris on the train that left twenty-five minutes ago, but for a sheer bloody fluke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loose Lips

The first time that Peggy Carter kisses Howard Stark, it saves his life. It is the early spring of 1941, France had fallen the previous summer, and she'd only met him a scant five months prior. Her op was supposed to take her away from Paris on the train that left twenty-five minutes ago, but for a sheer bloody fluke. Instead, she's bustling down the _Place Vendôme_ as fast as she might without drawing too much attention from the bloody _Luftwaffe_ office in the former _Hôtel Ritz_. 

Peggy's hand is in her pocket, fingers curled around her pistol, because this one might very well come down to a firefight. And she doesn't fancy her chances so close to a Nazi base.

Discretion being the better part of valour is a lesson she hopes will stick after this. Howard Stark is a good man, one of the Allies' great minds, and, from what she just overheard, he's on the list of people that the Third Reich would love to have a chat with -- not because they have the faintest notion of the role he's playing in the battle against them, but just because he's brilliant. And possibly since Peggy and Howard relieved them of another brilliant scientist the previous November, they're trying to make up their sum again. All lovely in theory, except for the fact that Howard had been indiscreet enough that they know he's here.

She wants to kick him for taking lodgings so close to the headquarters, but his brazen point -- "where's the last place they'd look for me?" -- had been well made. But for the girl he'd taken to bed the night before being in with the invading hoard. 

Some fellow in the _6eme arrondissement_ is missing trousers and a coat from a washing line; she'd snatched them up in passing and shoved them under her coat, giving her the appearance of an expectant mother, and that's worked out well enough that she can't even be sorry for the casual act of theft. People get out of her way; she'll have to remember this for the future. 

This war will be lost or won as much through random luck, she's sure, as good management. Loose lips and all that, working out in their favour, and she hopes fiercely not to be too late. It's quite a walk from the train station, but she'd slipped away promptly after overhearing the information. There's not much Peggy loathes like collaborators, but she's well-trained enough not to show her disgust, and to listen in for useful intel, and today, it paid off. Much of the conversation she'd overheard had been pointless. Arrogant little men with ugly little ambitions for advancing under the Vichy government -- grousing that they'd not been involved in the action to bring in Stark.

 

When she gets to his lodging, out of breath, she kicks open the mercifully locked door and throws the worn old suit at him. "Get dressed," she barks.

Startled awake, he just stares at her, stunned, for a few seconds, before moving to obey. Peggy gathers up any papers, notebooks and shoves them in a pillowcase, her gun still in her hand. She makes him shave away his moustache as she arranges the pillowcase under her coat, again feigning pregnancy. 

"Peg, what is --" But she won't let him start talking. They don't have time. 

"Scuff your shoes up in the hearth and place your gun in one pocket and any cash in the other. They know you're here."

He turns pale and more serious than she's ever seen him, and Peggy's struck by how young he looks without his rakish facial hair. He's older than her, and it's an absurd thought, but Christ, they really are all younger and older than they have a right to be. She wonders if either of them will survive this war, and then decides not to think about it.

"I owe you for this, pal," he tells her, and she looks him over, one more time, checking for any obvious tells, before they head out. Peggy locks the door to the lodgings and takes him out the back way through the boarding house kitchen because she believes in being careful.

There's a bar across the river in Montparnasse that's run by a veteran of the Great War, and he's a key figure in _La Résistance_. If she can't hide Howard there, at least to regroup, she knows a way into the Catacombs not far from it. Her mind is racing through possibilities, alternative possibilities and all the various contacts she might have to utilise to save the man's life... and, it's embarrassing, but she nearly walks them into a patrol because she's five steps ahead and nearly trips up on this one. 

It's a mistake that an agent of her training should be ashamed of making, and she-- she reacts rather rashly. The arm she has in his -- pay no attention to the perfectly ordinary couple about their perfectly ordinary business, _Leutnant_ , -- hauls him back into the _rue_ behind him. Closer and closer yet, kissing him passionately with the sound of stomping jackboots and her racing pulse ringing in her ears.

Peggy kisses him long enough that the patrol leaves them be, long enough to think, _well, that's not too bad, is it_ , before stepping back. It's the sort of incident that herald the beginning of some grand romance, she thinks, except that they're both far too sensible for that sort of thing, thank goodness. And she's not even wearing her Victory Red lipstick because she's undercover here, so the kiss is gone as soon as it's over. 

He looks like he might say something, and they don't have the time, so she doesn't let him. "Follow me," she commands, and she doesn't look back.


End file.
